


About That Night

by Maggiemaye



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, But seriously I don't know how to accurately describe this via tags, F/M, Hopeful Ending, How Do I Tag, Mentions of Paige/Tim, Mentions of Quintis, Opposites Attract, rarepair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8283113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maggiemaye/pseuds/Maggiemaye
Summary: Usually Happy wasn’t one to mince words, but she found it difficult to express what felt so illicit about this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As a Quintis shipper I'm not sure what to say about this. So. Here it is :P Thank you Caroline for the quick beta and the confidence boost!

It was weird that the Ken doll was there so late. Everyone else, including Paige and Ralph, had left the garage already. Walter had been upstairs for over an hour. And yet there was Tim at his desk, staring at a piece of paper and saying nothing.

“What are you still doing here?” she called out, striding toward his desk.

Tim looked at her. “Thinking.”

“That explains the burning tire smell.”

“Oh really?” he countered with a winning smile. “I thought that was just your perfume.”

Happy bit down a smirk; the jock was surprisingly quick tonight. “You’d never catch me wearing perfume.”

Tim’s shoulders twitched as if in a silent laugh, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he held up the piece of paper again.

“This is my clearance to go back into the field and take other assignments. Apparently I’m not as broken as I thought.”

Happy raised her eyebrows. This was bigger than she’d expected. As much as they all hated to admit that a jock like Tim could be helpful, he had been an asset to Scorpion numerous times. And—not that she had an opinion either way, of course—there was at least one team member who would take it hard no matter what.

“You know what you’re going to do yet?”

“Oh, the decision’s been made. But you won’t be the first to hear about it.” Tim looked her straight in the eye. Happy stared him down, suddenly unwilling to the the one to lower her eyes first.

Finally Tim broke his gaze, and a tiny thrill of satisfaction went through her. He reached down into his drawer to pull out a bottle of Jim Beam and two glasses. Happy blinked in surprise.

“It is cause for celebration, though,” he said offhandedly, “if you’re up for a drink.”

“Bourbon?” she deadpanned as he got up for ice. _“That’s_ what you keep in your drawer? You really are a mini-Cabe.”

“Cabe’s probably got moonshine in his drawer,” Tim countered, and Happy couldn’t help but be amused by the thought. “So I take it you don’t want that drink?”

“Never said that.” Without regard for however he organized his stuff, she shifted it all to the floor and hopped up to sit cross-legged on his desk. He laughed a little as he returned to his chair and poured their glasses. The whiskey was spicy and a little rough going down, but it was a good burn. Happy found herself pouring another glass before her brain quite caught up.

They drank in silence for a while. It wasn’t exactly companionable silence; Happy was in her own world and barely took notice of Tim frowning down at his desk. There was a reason she was still at the garage this late; she didn’t exactly spend a lot of time at home anymore. It was a lot quieter there than it had been in the past, before everything.

“Still don’t want to tell me what exactly it is we’re ‘celebrating?’”

Tim just grinned and raised his newly-full glass to her. There was an edge to the expression that made it clear celebration was the furthest thing from his mind. Happy found herself watching the movement of his throat as the drink went down. Admittedly, she could see why Paige would go for someone like him. He was hot in an obvious kind of way, a purely physical kind of way. As he kept drinking, Happy could see his eyes move from her face down to her exposed collarbone, never saying a word. The space between them began to blur.

It wouldn’t take that much effort to just slide down into that chair with him, and test out the results of his physical. For a long moment she let it cross her mind. Her personal life was a smoking crater anyway, and here she was alone with the jock—

“You’re doing that eye thing again.”

Happy blinked down at him, incredulous and flushed. _“What_ eye thing?”

“Your eyes bug out sometimes when you’re concentrating. Most people squint, it’s weird.” He shrugged, amusement twitching his lips up.

“So you’ve been checking me out, huh? Didn’t think I was your type.” _Toby will be so smug. He knew it all along—_

Happy knocked back the rest of her drink, drowning the thought.

“You’re not,” he said easily. “I’m not yours either. And yet it doesn’t take a genius to know what you were thinking about me just now.”

Happy watched as he put his glass down and slowly slid his fingers forward, until the very tips of them came to rest on the laces of her boot.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she said flatly, her body still as a statue.

“Why do you say that?”

“If you were going to stay, you wouldn’t be…” She gestured to his fingers as they rolled her shoelace. Usually Happy wasn’t one to mince words, but she found it difficult to express what felt so illicit about this. He wasn’t even touching her. And yet there was something fascinating, something _blistering_ about the way his fingers moved.

“I thought about you when we first met, you know.” He rested his hand over her ankle, but still made no move to untie the knot. “Maybe I’m just not as much of a boy scout as you think I am.”

Happy felt her face heat up, but she refused to look away. Looking at Tim was starting to feel like a fight; there was a winner and a loser every time.

“Bull,” she finally said. “You’re just upset about leaving, so you’re sabotaging to make it easier to say goodbye. Why does everyone _do_ that? Why does everyone screw up what they have? It’s so idiotic! Tim, you’re such...such an idiot.”

Happy tried to rein it in as soon as she realized how much she’d said. During her tirade Tim’s face had changed. Where the look on his face had been pure heat before, now there was something soft in it as well, tender and resigned.

“Happy.”

 _“Don’t,”_ she spat, hating the quiet way he said her name. “I don’t want your pity, boy scout. Just tell me if you’re staying or leaving. I want to hear you say it.”

He stood up. Happy gave up trying not to notice the way his black t-shirt clung to him. It was begging to be noticed. “What would you do if I said I was leaving, and you’d never see me again after tonight?”

Happy swallowed; he was very close. “Maybe something I shouldn’t.”

“And I can’t say I’m not intrigued. But—“

“But nothing. Are you staying or leaving?”

“Happy, come on. I’m not really the one you want to ask that question to.”

Just like that, it was as if a wall sprang up between them. Happy climbed off the desk and stood across from it, folding her arms across her chest. Tim watched her from where he stood beside his chair.

“Go talk to Paige,” she said in a low voice. “Tell her the news.”

He held his hands up. “Happy—“

 _“Go.”_ Whatever pull she’d been feeling toward Tim, it was broken the second he’d brought Toby into the room. It was all wrong now, even more wrong than before.

* * *

 

  
She got to the garage early on Tim’s last day. There was one other familiar vehicle there when she pulled up, and she tried not to think too much about it.

Tim flagged her down as soon as he saw her.

“Hey, I was hoping to catch you.” He was smiling as usual, but quickly dropped it after seeing her face. “Happy, about that night—“

“You don’t have to say anything. We weren’t thinking clearly.”

“Maybe not, but I still think it’s worth bringing up before I go.”

“Fine. Talk away,” she said brusquely, power-walking to her workbench. Tim kept up easily, given his longer legs, and Happy tried not to be annoyed. She focused intently on her tools and refused to glance at him.

“I know we had a little bit to drink, and some things were said. I just hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable. It was a bad night for me.”

“I get it. Believe me,” she said shortly.

“I know you do.” He sighed, giving up on catching her eye. “You probably don’t want to hear this, but I’m glad you were there. It was good to have another person who…”

“Whose life was going up in flames?”

“Exactly.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, I know nothing would have...happened.”

“Yeah,” she said quickly. As soon as Tim had left the garage that night, Happy had felt relieved that things hadn’t gone any further. Thinking about it was still a mixture of embarrassing and...not. It was best he was leaving, Happy told herself.

“Look,” she went on. “I was messed up that night too. None of us are good with change. And I’m really not good with people leaving.”

“I’m not doing it because I want to.”

“I know,” she replied. “It’s not your fault.”

There was a cautious pause.

“How are things with the doc?”

Happy looked up, finally. “Icy.”

“He’ll come around.”

He looked so confident as he said it, and Happy wanted to believe him. She put her tools down and gave him the tiniest of smiles.

“Thanks. How did it go telling Paige you were leaving?”

Tim shrugged. “She was...not as upset as I wanted her to be.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. I’m hoping some distance will be good.”

Happy nodded, and the silence began to stretch into awkwardness. It seemed neither of them knew exactly how to leave things.

“Well,” said Tim finally, “you’ve got my work cell. And if you ever want to get things off your chest, here.”

He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. Happy raised her eyebrows when she saw it was his personal cell.

“You wrote this down before you came to work?”

“Yeah, I was hoping this discussion would go well.” He smiled again, a little sheepishly. “I’m not leaving the planet, Happy. If you need a friend, you’ve got one.”

She looked at the slip of paper, caught off guard by how touched she felt. “Thanks.”

“Of course. Take care, Happy.”

The rest of the team started to file in. Walter had trouble hiding his glee, while Paige and Cabe were more subdued than Happy usually saw them. From their respective desks, Toby and Sly watched everyone. At the end of the day Happy stayed where she was while everyone else said their goodbyes; she had no desire for any interaction between them to be seen by the team, and thought Tim probably felt the same way.

He caught her eye as he was heading out the door, giving her a little wave. She nodded back, just once, before returning to her work.

 


End file.
